Top Ten Reasons Why Roller Skiing Does Not Suck!

Photo; Multi-time State Nordic Champion coach ilg, ramping up for snow season on East Animas Road yesterday. Pic by Vishnu.

#10) Cuz it cuts up your thighs, calves, abs, intercostals, butt, lats, and delts like NOTHING else can while burning twice as many calories as lower body specific endurance activities!

#9) Union-carbide road ski pole tips gives you the upper hand against omnipotent chasing dogs, paparazzi, bears, serial murderers, etc.

READ THE REST HERE

just scroll down to COACH's LATEST TEACHINGS...

refreshed DAILY if not more!

Perceptions...vs. M(om)ents....

"Perceptions create our problems,
m(om)ents themselves never do."

- Coach Steve Ilg

photo by Ananda of Dewachen yesterday up in the High Country. My 3 year-old Rinpoche is teaching me my highest yoga of my life...each day and in everyWay. click to enlarge Her Transmission into your Practice today!

the quote arrived to me yesterday as i rode up to Andrews Lake (10,748') to meet my girls, culminating 3 days on the bike totaling 9 hours and over 11,000' of climbing. i hadn't been on a bike, hec, i hadn't done any cardio really besides cardio commuting since before my Imogene Pass Run! Amazing, from the intense 3-day cardio immersion, i feel great.

That's the type of yogic wholeness that WF imparts...may all be so Blessed to find this Precious Path.

Dharma Blessings upon your Practice today,

coach ilg

Wanna Get High?

oh, ilg can get you high alright...how about taking a hit from this (peace)pipe...

Clear Lake run

click on the above link and take 2 minutes to come along on my run up to the ridge overlooking Clear Lake near Silverton, Colorado this morning...


enjoy...

head bowed,
your feeble mountain yogi

ilg running ice lakes video...

Enjoy...

ilg running Ice Lake; 8*29*10

head bowed,
your ol' mountain yogi

NEW ILG TRAINING VIDEO! FREE: ilg runs 12,613' Peak in 'mocassins'

More than a few WF Yogis have been here...some of you with your anal sphincters beginning to contract; the beginning of the knife-edge arete of my lifelong Sacred High Peak Pilgrimage; Engineer Mountain this morning...YouTube link of me running this 12,613' granite puja table this morning in my 'moccasins' is found below...

***

Most Noble WF Sangha,

this morning,
this Lovenote from long-time WF Devotee and Ironman; Fit Kit arrived in my Inbox...

Dear Steve:
You are really calling me home.
I can close my eyes and remember doing the Ai Imawa Healing postures
on the summit of Engineer Mountain.
I also remember the pain of doing intervals on the climb up.
I also remember marveling at your running ability on the shale and the snow on our descent.
Ai Imawa
Fit Kit

***

Well Fit Kit,
ilg decided to honor you and the many other WF Warrior's that i've scared, tormented, and merged into utter High Peak Bliss with over the years...Warrior's such as "Never Quittin' Quentin", "Flex", "Racin' Jason", "The Zeinmaster", "SassoSan", to name a few.

So sacred is this lifelong "go to" High Peak Pilgrimage of mine, that today i figgered it was time
to immortalize it on YouTube...

For you, Fit Kit...and All WF Warriors, mountain yogis, and all Beings everywhere with Love and Chi...it's only 2.5 minutes...ilg TAF's you'll find it worthwhile...enjoy;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH3XOQocQm8


head bowed,
coach ilg

Training Profile: Goulding Trail - So Steep Even The Deer Slip

Namaste Noble Warriors of Wholeness!
yesterday i took a jog up the Goulding Trail...locally it's infamous for it's super steep gradient with over 22 switchbacks in the first mile. personally, i lost count after the first six.

starting elevation: 7,900'

finish elevation: 10,000'

length: 2.7 miles through spirit-rousing pine and aspen forests beneath the enormous Hermosa Cliff faces...

access: trailhead is about 14 minutes by car from my front door in Durango.

wanna come along?

thought so...that's why i took my camera; just for Thee!
click pics to enlarge the Chi Hit

for this mountain run, i used what i call my "Mod-a-ssins" a pun for "Modern Moccasins";
these are the Saucony Kinvara
- 7.7 ounces and
pretty much zero support.
those of you that have been traveling with me all these decades, know that i was among the first to forward barefoot and then, later, promoted the Vibram Five-Fingers®. the Kinvara is absolutely a beautiful hybrid between a traditional trail runner and the Five-Fingers. least for me. i love these fleet, foot 'socks' so much, i am even considering racing Imogene Pass in them this September! 'considering' being the operative word. just the thought of racing Imogene in 'moccasins' turns me on.


start of the trailhead. the route takes demanding switchbacks right beneath this 600' face before skirting it on photo left...


...within 5 minutes of huffing and puffing, you get a sense of what's in store for you;
an absolutely stunning altar of pine and aspen forest where a bear or deer could be eating Service Berries and watching you from 10 feet away without you knowing it...


Golden Chanterelle grace a decomposing Spruce..


a half-mile into the ascent and the East Needles begin winking at your Noble Effort...


...turn the next switchback at you see the resort of Tammaron (it's called something else now) at below you and Missionary Ridge in the background..


...must be "Wing Night" in the high country...i've never seen this before; an entire Hawk wing lying beside the trail. now THAT must have been a helluva airborne fight! Om Mani Padme Hung...


...my beloved Aspen Beings; standing the same way i like to run: half naked!



...besides the dizzying effect of climbing so fast up so many switchbacks,
you also run the risk of becoming deeply and divinely intoxicated by the perfume of Mother Earth, expressed through a zillion wildflowers along the way. yes, the trail is hidden in this shot!

My turn-around today...why? see those thunderheads rolling across Father Sky? i hit the rip-cord at this point (45 minutes into the run) and scooting back down the trail in 20 minutes before Our Father opened His arms...

God Bless All who must do their Warrior Effort on "Hillclimb Mode" on Treadmills today; May this iDL entry seep into their cells and be Transported...
to
Here
Now.


May Thy Sweat Be Sacred this weekend...i might just try to knock out Handies Peak
this weekend with some HP Mountain Yogis...
then again,
that will be yet another Psalm in the ilg book of Prayers..

head bowed,
your feeble teacher of multi-disciplined yoga known as WF!

Stress Reduction: A Training Effect from WF

"Wholistic Fitness® reduces stress in our life
because we learn inner skills to adjust to 'problems' in a positive way.
What we used to see as 'problems'
become transformed into blessings; opportunities to Rise Higher!"
- steve ilg

HP Yogini Melissa Van Sant, owner of Rose Pedals in Durango, crankin' toward the summit of Jones Creek singletrack this morning; 2,375' in 4.8 miles of drop-dead beautiful singletrack to 9,580'. click to enlarge...the 'impressionist' quality of this pic is not via any PhotoShop antics; it's from my own sweat on my cell phone camera!

Melissa's daughter, Jennifer, an HP Yogini too, also cranked this run...6 months after giving birth! Jennifer knows how to suffer. She ran cross country under one of our nation's best cross-country coaches; Ron Keller of Durango.



Melissa's warrior husband, John? Yup, John's allegiance to HP Yoga is reversing all sorts of chronic pains from construction working...he cranked the "Hum SAH" HP CHI big time with us!

14 bikes to one car...YEAH BABY! Also; ilg faces the FaceBook Wizard Question

click pic and see extensive footnotes for killer details...

what's "on my mind*"?
asks the FaceBook Wizard each time ilg logs on.

ain't it obvious for ALL of us?
layers and layers of avidya...

if my Mind was Clear/Enlightened,

NOTHING would be "on it"!

oh, and is it just feeble ilg or aren't the most 'basic' yoga postures extremely challenging after each hard mountain run or
strength training workout in the Iron Temple?
i mean,
do Studio Yogis ever regularly do any other fitness discipline that is contractive, for Buddha's sake?
or...does doing intense, regular, contractive work somehow threaten their Attachment to 'deep and impressively fluid' yoga postures?
does not high intensity endurance work meet their notion of 'yoga'?
hmmmmm....
is starting to sound a lot more like
Ommmmm
to
ilg!

photo: that's Durangatang Nick Gould, fellow staff teacher at the Cave of Champions here in Durango...just one of several National Class cyclists and professional fitness trainers that have already found a deep friend within the chi of HP Yoga®and WF. Nick - a celebrated Expert/Pro Mountain Biker, who is a personal trainer turned onto HP Yoga and also a great DJ, is set to win the Durango Tri at DMR. the bikes in front of Yogi NG is Durango's first Bicycle Parking Lot in front of Carvers Bakery (...one of the founders of Carver's is Karen Carver, a WF Student from long ago; see WF Mealtime Cookbook). Kudos to Carvers Restaurant and the City of Durango who recently collaborated to replace one downtown parking spot with a bike rack that holds 14 bikes. Seeing as the City of Durango is funded primarily by revenue from sales tax, this will allow more tax-paying customers to conveniently park their bikes in front of this and other downtown businesses - all while reducing dependency on fossil fuels, alleviating congestion, reducing wear and tear on local roads, and promoting a healthy lifestyle!

* if "mind" is, as the Enlightened Ones concur, nothing more than a Great Mirror reflecting prakriti, then surely the question, "What's On Your Mind?" becomes sophomoric and essentially useless (like most WordSpeak).

Wholistic Fitness = Wholistic Fun - delivers at least 3x as much focused fun!

click on my phone pics below for enlarged Chi Hits...enjoy and may your next Sweat be empowering...


another go(o)d thing of Self Healing from spinal paralysis: an injured and way hematoma'd right hip ain't gonna slow down this mountain yogi too long; top of Coal Bank Pass (10,640')...the first of three within a 2-hour, 50k ride yesterday...listen to this to take your in-juries to the Other Side

***

sometimes ilg just reckons
that the people struggling to get fit or healed simply have forgotten HOW MUCH MORE FUN a wholistically fit Human can pack into say...2 hours; take yesterday for instance...

Big Molas Lake from the top of Molas Pass toward Silverton. to the left of the foreground pine is Kendall Mountain, which i'm supposed to race up in a few weeks...right now, my right leg can't even take full bodyweight...hmmm...

***

in less than 2 hours i got to ride a most scintillating and beautiful 50 kilometers which covered 3 mountain passes, each of them over 10,600'. yeah; 3. average speed was 24.5 kph. vertical feet climbed was about 5,000'. max speed (did i mention FUN?) was a sizzling 77 kph. add to that the double Pranic Punch of immersed in that much high altitude pran coupled by that of merging into a heavenly Realm via the several hundred Sacred Mantra repetitions i used to inhabit a wonderful climbing rhythm...and...

it's
just
WAAAAY
too much FUN
being Wholistically Fit!

cuz then,
this morning i rode over to the Iron Temple
and knocked around some Iron element (elegantly of course)
in about 3x as fast/effective of a workout that the other warriors
were doing,
matched by this evening where i'm about to pedal off again to
throw down the Sacred Sweat in another dastardly fun HP PROP WORKOUT!

as our WF maturity grows,
courtesy of living the WF Lifestyle Principles,
the amount of fun we can pack into a 2 hour cardio workout or a 15-minute
gym workout or an asana session is just...
well...
it's
go(o)d.

really,
really
go(o)d.

there is no God
higher
than Sweat
or
Stillness.

Wholistic Fitness.

Challenging our weaknesses
since 1982

Blessings upon thy Sweat and Stillness,

your feeble ilg

Cardio Commute Pic of the Week; they don't call it Chi-Town for nothing!

the following pic was sent in by WF Devotee and Cardio Commute King; Jim Johnston of Chi-cago, IL. click to enlarge...love the heels and side saddle posture!

if you spot a Cardio Commute pic of the week, send it into the Tribal Headquarters!

That’s what I am talking about!

I was running into work this morning and saw this couple biking into the Chicago loop. They started weaving in and out of traffic and that’s when I pulled the camera phone out.

All is well with me, I thought you might appreciate the picture.

Jim
Chicago

Cardio Vs. Car Hours..what's your ratio so far this month?

24 hours of Cardio so far this month vs. 18 minutes of Car Driving...yeah baby! WF Lifestyle Rages Onward, Inward, and ever Upward!!!

ilg's wheels as captured by Wayne Williams

Life After Death On the A/B Club Ride; Mayday/Breen Loop

click to enlarge the empathic pain hit...

Life after Death via the A/B Club Ride on the infamous Breen/Mayday Loop. photo earlier ago by Ananda on the WF Temple H(om)e Stoop(a).

the WF Warrior must accustom themselves to humility. Again, and again, and endlessly again. We continuously stare into the pain of both body and ego given the noble fact that we refuse to specialize in any one sport or discipline, thus a WF Warrior bravely toes Start Lines as an Endless Beginner.

did okay on the ride...got dropped from the A group on Hesperus Hill (see map on link above) along with more than a few others. after the regroup at Mayday, hung tuff until 13k to go and things got detonated as always on the three 'rollers.' eventually, i won the sprint from the Lead Chase clocking 38.3mph to win it after 44 miles and 2,425' of climbing. Thanks MAP Aminos! Thanks HP PROP!

after a ride like this, my stomach usually can't tolerate any real food. so, ilg does go against the tide of sport nutrition fashion which speaks so highly about 'refilling the glycogen window immediately' after a workout like this with all sorts of carbs.

personally, ilg prefers waiting a couple of hours after a ride like this, staying light, enjoying the feeling of emptiness, and then doing Pranayama after i recover a bit. the body deeply treasures and assimilates prana extremely deeply and effectively if one has the will power to hold off eating physical foods after a brutally go(o)d endurance workout. today, ilg even managed to recover enough without eating anything but a PowerBar (Wild Berry, of course) to go take a "Sport Yoga" class offered by a local gym.

although ilg could find not one morsel of reasoning why this was labeled a "Sport Yoga" class, the instructor did just fine and taught a safe, effective asana class. ilg remains open-mouthed agog at just how effective this 6,000 year-old science of asana remains even in America's watered-down delivery of this Ancient, Wholistic Art and Science of radical self-transformation.

when i do eat s(om)ething after a hard ride, something as simple as a PBJ and an Ilg Supreme will do me just right...and even keep pace with the ever highly charged Dewachen instead collapsing on the couch after a ride and watching Versus! kids. they'll either kill ya, or keep you younger than you ever thought possible...

May this help get you out to a Start Line soon...

in whatever way that means for thee...

Blessed be thy sweat,

abbaji

Postcards from Durango; Telegraph Hill

click to enlarge the Chi Hit...taken from my cheap ass camera phone today...

A fork in the road (5)
The steep, direct Path beckons (7)
Upward and inward (5)

WF Master Student L'gate
NYC

***

what other ever-fresh Student Dharma resides in the amazing WF SanghaLounge?
you won't know how much inspiration and knowledge you are missing
until you keep true to the WF SanghaLounge
and CONTRIBUTE YOUR TRUTH!


***

First another benefit of living the WF Life: chillin' beside my hood bro's; Justin and Dave last night beside Dave's new old sailboat (that's another story...not many sailboats in Durango)...after about 45 minutes of attempting to name Dave's sailboat* listening to Mother Animas rush by as the Dog Star and others began to peck their star-tling punctuations into Father Sky and watching Great Blue Herons soar downriver to bed, our ages came up in conversation. When Justin learned i would turn 48 this month, his jaw dropped, "Jesus, i figgered you were like 33!" WF, baby. The Path works, if you work the Path.

my MTB, "Miles" waits for me during a pee-pee break** beside one of the signature old Telegraph poles for which this ride is named. the Sacred Peak of Dibé Nitsaa lies within view of this shot of my beloved La Plata mountains. thankfully, my urination urge proved beneficial, for ilg was able to clean the anaerobic alley of a 21%, knee-crunching headwall which rears her menacing head(wall) right after this shot. it took about 30 minutes of pedaling from my house to reach this particular spot. The entire 20-mile route is crazy fun, beautiful, and features an outstanding serpentine descent through Anasazi fields of sandstone boulders, gamble oak, pinon, and alpine lupine. oh, and uh...there is about a couple thousand feet of climbing.

want more info?

check out the DURANGO VIBE Cave in the WF SanghaLounge coming soon on our new website! Members only...sorry...however, if you ain't willing to cough up a few pennies per month to help support the stalwart Mission of WF? you deserve to get lost...both on Telegraph Hill and in the Bardo!

coming soon; my new website;
Tribal Members will receive all sorts of rad, wholistic things to help all of us Higher...such as an entire WF-TV lounge filled with streaming videos of every conceivable aspect of Wholistic Fitness®, with naked ilg bouldering included! (CG, hey, you set the bar!)

Blessings be upon thy inner world
and
outer workouts...

el coache


* my suggestion which made it to Dave's short list was, "Ophir Broke" (pun on "Go For Broke"...see, Dave used to live in the nearby yet exceedingly remote (population 113) high mountain hamlet of Ophir

** hey, i am the father of a 2 year-young)

Barefoot Running...

as far back as 1985, i began writing and teaching about barefoot running and continually questioned the band-aid type of 'performance-enhancing inventions' streaming forth from the running shoe companies. not to say that i wasn't one of the many envious gawkers when Mike Folwell was the first kid in Durango High School to go to school wearing the brand new Nike® Waffle Trainer! later in my life, in fact, i managed a running shoe store up on "The Hill" in Boulder, Colorado and one point possessed an astonishingly colorful ocean of 28 pairs of running shoes in my closet. oh, the Attachments!

anyway, a few years ago you first read about my product testing of a 'new' product called Vibram FiveFingers® right here in this column and my positive embrace of them....

well, the Outer World always does eventually catch up with Wholistic Fitness® and now even my Amino Acid sponsor is jumping onto the bandwagon of Barefoot Running:

READ THE REST

Along This Trail...RAM!

a Ram-drunk ilg, yesterday, at Durango's local climbing crag; X-Rock area
photo by Ananda

on Saturday, the Gods smiled.
They allowed me to win the KOM at the top of Hesperus in the "B" Group club ride,
and 48.5 miles and 2,460' later, finish 6th in the 45 mph+ descent down Wildcat Canyon back to Durango. ilg didn't win the KOM (King of Mountain) because i was the most powerful or strongest climber among the 13 road-cycling warriors...not even close. ilg won because of tactics and wise discrimination and experience. i ninja'd the two leaders 300 meters from the summit by literally doing a pranayam and blowing myself as light as possible up the infamous, heart-withering climb which has long been a weekly test-piece for locals...

on Sunday, the Gods smiled again...
this time, not upon a road biking ilg, rather, in a categorically diverse
path of of sacred sweat...oh!!! how Blessed the Path of Wholeness...to play our physiologic capacities among God's wild toys and ways...


Read The Rest
on today's DL
and learn about the Sacred Temple of Boulderers: The Boxcar
plus a Birthday Poem to Ananda
a God-intoxicated Sutra from Swami Ramdas
and how ilg ties it all into Personal Fitness and Sport Performance;

DL: Dharmically Drenched Teachings For Those Inspired Through Multi-Disciplined Sweat
since 1982

Today, an osprey...

today,
after bowing to two Bald Eagles
holding firm on the naked ancient cottonwood branches
over the whirling Mother River Animas...

READ MORE direct from the world's most
versatile coach/yoga teacher/athlete
on today's DL Subscription Format

PostCards From Durango; Spring, Stairs, and Family Sweat

click on pics to enlarge the Chi Transmission...all photos taken on Sunday by steve ilg unless noted otherwise. please ask before republishing, por favor...

Dibé Nitsaa overlooks the WF Temple H(om)e...my chi-ldhood Sacred Peak. Note the obvious 'yoni' manifested on this Sacred Peak of the North - strikingly similar to the Himalaya's most sacred peak, Mt. Kailash; the abode of the Lord of Yogis; Shiva.

i call these my "Stairs of Shiva," located a beautiful half kilometer from home, just across the Mother Animas. a former deer trail which leads up to Riverview Elementary School, these stairs are now my Stairway To Heaven...running stairs is the ideal cardio/skill enhancer during transition seasons when the trails are still too muddy to bike or run. In an upcoming WF DVD, i'll take you through my basic Stair Running Program...few other Cardio Disciplines lend themselves so naturally to Mantric Consciousness than does a Sess(hin) of Stair Running; insta-Zen!

i KNOW you don't want to miss the other 6 beautiful photos and accompanying Teachings!

Subscribe today to DL

and learn the WF Priorities of Ritual and Sacrifice...

Blessed be thy sweat,

Deep be thy stillness...

coach

3 Training Videos: 3 Minutes of Chi For Your Day...plus Conscious Parenting Training Video Clip...

wow, what a PROP Workout last night in the Practice Cave! packed Cave again and 'props' go to the Mother/Daughter Team from Philadelphia who showed up and got ilg-blasted at 7,000'! Champions, i tell you...champions. my only regret is that ilg can't share our Weekly High Altitude HP PROP Workouts with ALL of you!...

i get asked about how much 'screen time' Ananda and i allow our Dewa to have each day. on the average these days it's 35 minutes which includes computer screen time...

what i'm about to show you is actual training footage of the Norwegian Nordic Sprint Team of which Dewa seems to enjoy as part of Her 35 minutes of screen time followed immediately by a Top Secret Conscious Parenting clip by myself with Ananda and Dewachen...followed by another Norwegian Nordic Team training clip that will absolutely sever the head off of ANY rationalization we may still harbor about not having the facilities to train or how we can't train while traveling...

Enjoy and USE THE CHI from this 3-minute BLAST OF PRANIC EMPOWERMENT STRAIGHT FROM THIS PLANE(T)S MOST BRUTAL, HISTORIC, and POETICALLY POWERFUL SPORT

VIDEOS ONLY FOR DL SUBSCRIBERS; sorry...this is just tooooo powerful for the masses...

the most efficient machine ever created...

"The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon."
~Bill Strickland, The Quotable Cyclist

"To the Wholistic Fitness® yogi? A bicycle is our lifeblood; it's our car, it's our health insurance, it's our chi-developer, it's our weapon against Gaia Abuse.
Today? Ride your bike...

...Then, teach your child."

- coach steve ilg
founder/Wholistic Fitness® Transpersonal Training since 1982

***

photos - ilg archives:
1 - typical scene; downtown Flag
2 - crankin' down Lower Oldham; my bike commute toward town.
3 - another generation of ilg/bike chi discovered!

NEW WF CARDIO TRAINING DVD! FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE INSPIRATION! Agassiz Running Pilgrimage

Agassiz Running Pilgrimage

An Offering Of Sacred Mountain Running

with coach

ORDER HERE! COMPLIMENTARY DVD...you pay only shipping & processing!

A COMPLIMENTARY "TRIBAL OFFERING" FROM COACH TO YOU!......NOW AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE CARDIO INSPIRATION!

Come join Coach and "Yogi Jut" during a 17-mile training run within the Kachina Peaks Wilderness just outside the Wholistic Fitness Temple H(om)e!

Feel the Chi, straight from Coach as he shares some important mountain trail running techniques while immersing yourself in the deep spirituality of high altitude peak running from one of this Nation's most accomplished trail racers and outdoor sport coaches.

With hauntingly beautiful Native American vocals from Sharon Burch, this COMPLIMENTARY KARMIC OFFERING FOR ALL OF YOU is CERTAIN to inspire a league of sacred sweat from within your own pores and soul!

Coach's renown passion for nature just deepens as their adventure lengthens. Coach's quotes such as, "The key to downhill running is to make it a moving Tadasana," are goldmines for WF athletes, plus his trademark humor spills out into the world-class scenery and makes this 18-minute DVD a MUST for your Wholistic Fitness® collection!

created, shot, sweated, and produced by Coach for you!

YOU PAY ONLY SHIPPING AND PROCESSING FEES!...Coach is Gifting you this DVD because he wants you to "Get out and do!" Please select the $8.00 option at checkout when ordering this DVD.

A portion of your shipping fee will be used to help Native Americans. If you enjoy this DVD, Coach simply asks that you please consider a WF Temple Tithe.